The eruption on Halmahera Island sent an ash cloud about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) into the air, though no towns or villages were close enough to face any immediate threat. Twenty hikers were on the slopes when the disaster struck, North Halmahera police chief Erlichson Pasaribu told reporters at a volcano monitoring station in Mamuya village. He said nine were from Singapore, while the rest were Indonesian.

As of Friday evening, 17 climbers — seven of them foreigners — had been found alive, according to local rescue agency head Iwan Ramdani. Rescue efforts were paused and are expected to resume on Saturday, he said.

Tour guide Alex Djangu, who was on the slopes when the eruption occurred, said he had arrived with a tour group on Thursday and noticed the volcano was acting “a bit strange.” “This was the first time I’d seen it so quiet,” he said by telephone from his hotel not far from the volcano. “I told the guests that a major eruption was going to happen because the volcano was accumulating pressure at the bottom of the crater. And my prediction turned out to be correct.”

When the eruption occurred, there were two groups of tourists — about 15 people in total — at the crater rim, the 48-year-old recounted.

“I panicked. I thought they had all died, but it turned out that only three people died,” the tour guide added. Djangu was with two German hikers who “survived because we were in the safe radius,” he said, describing it as the biggest eruption of Mount Dukono he had ever witnessed.

“Previously, when there was an eruption, there would be a single blast and then it was over. This time, the eruption started at 7:42, and by the time we came down, the intensity was still the same — rocks were still coming out of the crater.”  (Bssnews)